Uncle Joe Laney

A Right Goodly Amount!

When I was about 8 years of age during World War 11 my uncle Joe had a farm and he loaded up his vegetables one morning and drove his mule and wagon about 8 miles to our house and ask mother if we boys could go with him to sell his vegetables. My brothers and I were glad to help him as it was a lot of fun.

Our job was to go to the people's door and let them know we were there and had vegetables. I was helping uncle Joe on the wagon when a lady ask the price of the okra. When I told her the price, she indicated that she only had 35 cents. I ask uncle Joe how much to give her for 35 cents and he replied "give her a right goodly amount". I didn't know exactly how much that was but I started putting the okra in the bag one hand full at a time. After a few hands full I saw her smile and I knew how much a 'right goodly amount' was. Not a bad way to treat people.

Another time we were visiting Uncle Joe"s farm and was walking around in his watermellon patch, I noticed that he had a small stone sitting on top of some of the watermellons. That had me puzzled, why put a stone on some of the mellons and not the other ones, When I ask uncle Joe why he did that he did not answer me ; not one word. Later on I figured that it was to keep kids from stealing his mellons. They would think he had done something to some of the mellons.

Uncle Joe never drove a car so he rode the city bus to close to his destination then he would walk the rest of the way. He had a habit of dragging his feet that made all the dogs mad at him when he came around.

Fast forward to a time that I needed a pair of work pants and when I went to the store to get them they did not have my exact size so I had to get a pair that was 1 inch longer. One day when I was working in the shop my pants kept getting caught under the heel of my shoe. I would drag the heel of my shoe to dislodge the cloth stuck under my shoe. Billy said to me that dragging my feet was annoying him and added that I reminded him of Uncle Joe.

That was how I concluded that was why Uncle Joe dragged his feet, his pants were too long and that made all of us laugh and made all the dogs mad as hell.